Nature of the Storm
by ScarletDavidRose
Summary: On the run from Organization XIII, Zeke and Arden have arrived in the spirit filled world of Burgess, and are on the search for their best friends, Cyrus and Roxie. But when two strangers from opposite walks of life appear, offering to help them find their friends, they're left with one question. Which one do they trust?


A black haired girl and a brown haired boy came out of a dark portal in the middle of the woods outside a small town. Once they did, they surveyed their snowy surroundings, the black haired girl's eyes filled with hope. The cold forest had a slight dark blue tint, spread by the vast expanse of the night sky. The only thing helping them see through the forest was the moon, its light seeming to brighten the surrounding forest.

"Where do you think we are?" the black haired girl asked her friend, looking into his brown eyes, attempting to read his thoughts.

"Can't tell. We could have landed back home, but I highly doubt that," the brown haired boy said, looking back up at the moon, this time in disgust. The very thing he used to enjoy staring up at at night only a few years ago now filled him with hatred, as it reminded him of one of their mortal enemies.

Just then they heard something gallop through the foliage behind them. This caused them to raise their guard and summon their weapons. The brown haired boy stepped his right foot back, bent over slightly while leaning to the left, and held his arms out, hands opened. Leaves swirled in miniature cyclones around his forearms and dispersed, only to reveal two enchanted, scalene-triangular, wooden tonfa blades with leaves and flowers sticking out here and there, with thick flower stems being the handles.

The girl shot her hand above her head as a single bolt of yellow-white lightning crashed down on her palm, only to take the form of a golden, light-brown violin with black lightning bolts etched into its main body. She brought into playing position as she caught a second strike of lightning that transformed into a bow, with its hair being replaced by a current of electricity.

"Think it's a Heartless, Zeke?" the girl asked her friend.

"Could just be a bear," Zeke said, his voice doubtful of his own answer.

"Must be a really limber bear," Arden said as she took her fighting position.

Soon after that, a group of black horses with golden eyes trotted out from behind the trees. They looked very similar to Heartless, which is what Zeke and Arden assumed they were. They'd killed hundreds of Heartless, possibly even thousands. They could take a few more.

Zeke was the first to strike. He did so swiftly, so fast the first horse didn't see him coming. The horse disintegrated, like all Heartless, except this one disintegrated into black sand. This made Zeke pause for a moment in confusion as he stared down at the black grains, giving another horse the chance to head butt him in the side, sending him sprawling into a nearby tree. Seeing this, Arden reacted just as quickly as Zeke first did, and stabbed the attacking horse, electrocuting it until it too exploded into black sand. A third one that decided to circle them charged at her.

"Thunder!" Arden commanded as she blasted to arcs of lightning at the incoming horse in an 'X' motion, sending a small x of lightning right into the horses face, causing it to explode on impact.

"Growth!" Arden heard Zeke command as a group of thorny vines grew out of the ground and shot past her, impaling the fourth horse multiple times over just before it barreled into her. Those same vines retracted back into the ground after the fourth horse had exploded into black sand.

The fifth horse, being the coward of the five, originally stood in the shadows and watched his comrades attempt to scare these people turned kill them. After seeing what happened to his partners, he made a break for it, shooting past the two teenagers, aiming for the woods, only to be stopped by a blast of ice, freezing over before being able to completely disintegrate.

Arden and Zeke whipped around, expecting to see an old friend, and they almost did. The person had white hair and blue eyes, like their friend. But unlike their friend, this person's hair was wild and tousled, their eyes a deeper blue, and they had extremely pale, nearly white skin. He wore a dark blue hoodie and brown pants, but no shoes. He looked at them with a smile on his face. This certainly wasn't Cyrus, but he was someone of interest.

"You two certainly handled that well, considering the fact that it seems you haven't encountered any Nightmares before," the boy stated. "So, who are you two spirits?"

Arden and Zeke shared a confused look.

"What do you mean 'spirits?'" Arden asked him. "We're humans."

"And what do you mean by Nightmares? Is that what those horses were? How can nightmares have a physical form like that?" Zeke asked the boy.

"Have you two been living under a rock? Those Nightmares were created by Pitch Black. Y'know, the Boogeyman. And how else can you have those powers? Of course your spirits!" the boy said, pointing at them with his wooden staff.

"She just told you, we're not spirits. Spirits imply the soul, which means we'd have to had died to become spirits, right?" Zeke stated, gesturing to themselves and the boy, with one of his tonfas, who he now assumed was a spirit.

"What, he didn't tell you?" the boy asked, glancing up at the moon. "He told me my name, Jack Frost, and that I'm a spirit."

"Quit being cryptic and just tell us who you're talking about! Who told you your name and that you're a spirit?" Arden demanded, nearly shouting at Jack.

"The Man in the Moon for crying out loud! He seriously left you guys in the dark didn't he?" Jack Frost replied with a huge grin on his face. "But don't worry, it happened to me too. He stopped talking to me after that, and that lasted for three hundred years."

This kind of reminded Zeke of the false memories he and his friends heads were filled with two years ago. They were only fourteen when that happened.

"You four are without names. You four are lost, and have no purpose. I can give you purpose," X stated from beneath his hood to the four teens with their heads down. They had no memories of what had happened. They were indeed lost. Or so they thought at the time.

X waved his hand in front of them, causing their original names to appear in front of them, but only X could see this. Cyrus, Roxanne, Arden, and Ezekiel. He thrust his hand forward, causing their names to swirl around each of them, jumble in front of them, and add an 'x', giving them their new names.

"Cyrxus."

"Roxxenna."

"Drexan."

"Exezelik."

Each of them uttered their new names in unison, pleasing X. The creation of this false memory was a success.

Zeke shook his head. This guy, spirit, whatever he was, refused to understand. He looked over at Arden and she looked back at him. They nodded at each other in understanding. They needed to find Cyrus and Roxie, on the off-chance that they landed on this world.

"C'mon Arden. We don't have time for this," Zeke told her as both their weapons dissipated.

"Yeah," she agreed, walking with him past Jack. They had more important things to do, like find a place to sleep, find a place where they could grab food real quick, and a place to buy some clothes that didn't make them look like they were cult members and/or terrorists.

"What? You're just gonna leave me like hanging like that? People aren't going to see you if that's what you're thinking," Jack called after them, tempted to follow them and laugh at their failure.

They almost ignored him.

"There's a town near here?" Arden said, turning around but still walking.

"Yeah. Just keep going that way, actually," Jack said, his smile growing just a hair. Seeing them fail was gonna be fun.

So they kept walking in the direction they were headed, unaware that the winter spirit they'd just encountered flew high over head. A few minutes later, they reached the town, searching for a shop that might be open. As it turned out, a place called Miller's Diner was open, and even had a few people in it too.

Jack flew overhead, watching them as they walked down the sidewalk towards a diner. They really believed they'd be seen. It was sad really. He used to be like them. Believing people could see him, but that lasted a lot less than a day for him. They'd see, then they'd be left alone for three hundred years, trying multiple different, and futile ways, to have people notice them. Then they'd reach solace in each other, and watching Sandman work his magic every night. He'd always found comfort and a little fun in Sandy's magic, passing his hand once through the golden sand, seeing what dreams would pop out.

Zeke and Arden walked into the diner, and seated themselves at a booth. They looked around and took in the black and white checkered floor, the silver-chrome walls holding blue-white lights, and saw as a waitress walked up to their booth wielding a smile and a pen and notepad. She had dark brown hair, with two thin stripes of color side by side. One dark purple, one bright pink. Besides that, she wore brown rimmed, curved square glasses over, were those purple irises? Beyond that, she didn't look any more than twenty.

"Hi guys, my name's Jessie, and I'll be your server today. What can I get you two to drink?" she said to them in a matured, sweet voice. She adjusted her glasses as she went to look down at her notepad.

"I'll have a small salad with a water please," Arden answered first, giving a polite smile.

"Alright. What dressing would you like?"

"Ranch please."

"What about you sweetheart?" Jessie said as she looked at Zeke, waiting for his answer.

"I'll just have a turkey sandwich with some water as well please," Zeke replied, following Arden's example and smiling politely.

"That comes with fries. Are you cool with that?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

"Ok guys. Not many people are here, so your food shouldn't take long. And those waters'll be out real soon," Jessie said as she walked towards the main counter.

"Thank you!" Arden called after her, knowing she was heard when the waitresses smile grew. She turned back to Zeke. "You'd better share some of those fries, sweetheart."

Zeke smiled. "I was planning on it, Sparky."

Arden glared at him for real that time. "Shut up."

Like Jessie said, their food was out fast. She brought their food out, waters and all. She even set the small plate of fries between the two of them, surprising the both of them a little. Even so, they dug in. Turns out escaping a heavily secured castle with nine highly skilled killers waiting at almost every corner could give you a serious case of the munchies.

They finished their food pretty quickly, and decided to talk after that.

"So, what should we do if we don't find them?" Arden asked Zeke.

"Unless this world isn't safe in some way, we move on to the next one."

"I guess. But with the little stunt we just pulled, you know who is going to be tailing us in some way."

"True."

"Alright guys, you done?" Jessie said, having come to their booth without them noticing.

"Yeah," Zeke said as they handed her their plates. "What do we owe?"

"Don't worry, it's on the house," Jessie said with a smile.

"Really? Thanks!" Arden said disbelievingly.

"Sorry," Zeke replied, producing a ten dollar bill from his cloak. "Can't let you go without a tip."

"I can't accept that," Jessie said with a smile. She wouldn't need it.

"Take it. It's the least we can do for an excellent waitress," Arden insisted, letting her know they wouldn't be giving up anytime soon.

"Fine. Thanks guys, and come back anytime," Jessie said as she took the bill and proceeded to walk to the main counter.

After that, the both of them walked out of the diner. They decided they'd take a look around the town, to get a good idea of places where they could possibly camp out. They didn't think it likely that they'd find somewhere in the town to set up camp, but it could happen. So, they took a left down an empty street and a right into an alleyway. What they saw there took them by surprise.

There was a six foot tall rabbit pointing a boomerang at that guy they saw earlier, Jack Frost.

"Been a long time," the rabbit said. "Blizzard of '68 I believe."

"Bunny, you're not still mad about that are you?" Jack asked innocently with a shrug of his shoulders.

The rabbit's expression darkened. "Yes. But that's not why I'm here. Fella's."

Just then two, well, Zeke and Arden didn't know what they were came out of nowhere and grabbed Jack by the hood of his shirt and pulled out a big red sack. It was then that Zeke and Arden decided to do something, their weapons appearing in their hands.

"Thunder," Arden whispered, causing a lightning bolt to crash down between Jack and the six foot rabbit, surprising the things holding Jack into dropping him and the sack.

The both of them walked out from the wall they were hiding behind into plain view of the four people. If you could call those things people anyway.

"Excuse me Peter Rabbit, but kidnapping teenagers is extremely frowned upon in today's society. One could only draw so many conclusions about why you'd be doing such a thing," Zeke said with a huge grin on his face, enjoying every bit of his statement.

"I am not Peter Rabbit, mate," the rabbit said as he pulled out a second boomerang and proceeded towards Zeke. "I'm the Easter Bunny."

"We're supposed to be afraid of you why?" Arden asked him, stepping between him and Zeke, pointing her bow at him.

"Because I can do this," the Easter Bunny said as he tossed both boomerangs at the two teens, Zeke and Arden dodging both with ease, even as they flew back around.

"Growthra!" Zeke commanded as a large amount of thick, thorny vines batted both of those one things away while encircling the rabbit, vines whipping at him, only to be cut down by the boomerangs and egg bombs.

Suddenly those two hairy things that were helping the bunny came up and clubbed Zeke and Arden on the heads, knocking both of them out. They then took out the big red sack they'd previously dropped, stuffed the both of them in, and stared at the rabbit expectantly.

"Take 'em to the Pole. North can decide what to do about 'em," the Easter Bunny told them. "I'll get Frost. He couldn't have gone far.

The two creatures nodded before one took out a snow globe, said something in a foreign language to it, and tossed it forward. The globe glowed and changed into a swirling portal, through which the creatures walked, sack in hand.

Jessie turned the key in the front door, locking the diner and pocketed the key. She walked over to her motorcycle, and looked around. No one around to see her, she tapped the frame of her glasses, as her outfit changed to her normal one in a quick flash of light. Her outfit consisted of black-purple torso armor, a brown battle-skirt, black, high quality combat boots adorned in silver spikes, a short sleeve dark brown leather jacket, and a brown framed visor with a black lens. What parts of her body that weren't covered by her uniform were covered in intimidating crimson and jet black tattoos.

She pulled out an obsidian tablet, and turned it on. She pulled up the pictures of the two teens she waited on earlier. Tapping both pictures, she confirmed that she'd made contact, and took a quick skim through their information.

Just then, their information and pictures disappeared as an audio feed popped up on the screen.

"Jessaine, have you made contact?"

"Yes sir. I have identified the targets and have placed the trackers," Jessaine replied.

"Good."

"Any trouble on your end?"

"Yes. I've not made contact with the Hoffman siblings just yet. Even worse, I'm not the first one here. Those glowing-winged pests have made it here as well."

"Damn. Any Black Coats?"

"Not that I've seen. Be watchful Agent Kaivers; you may not be alone."

"Of course sir. I'll report back once I've more information."

"Over and out."

Jessie slipped the tablet into her jacket before she summoned her sword and shield.

"You can step out now," she said.

"And here I thought you didn't notice me," a voice said as a white cloaked figure stepped out from the alley next to the diner.

"Angel," she spat.

"Demon," the figure hissed.

"They're coming with us Voltiir," Jessie said to the silver haired man, pointing her sword at him.

"We'll see about that Jessaine," Voltiir stated, summoning his forearm cannon. "We will certainly see."


End file.
